How Environment Influences Our Lives: The Influence on Writers’ Work and Ourselves

Kristian DeShea Jones, Language Arts, Social Studies, Library Classes, Nathaniel Alexander Elementary

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards

200 Word Synopsis

This unit will present students with the history of The Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and Langston Hughes.  This unit will also help students explore how a student’s neighborhood/environment affects and influences them.  Students will complete stations on the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance.  By viewing how Langston Hughes environment influenced him students will have a better understanding of the topic.  Then together we will read and discuss two books, Harlem and The BlockHarlem is a poem by Walter Dean Myers that is about the neighborhood of Harlem.  The Block is a book of selected poetry by Langston Hughes with collage work by Romare Bearden.  Students will complete a connection stems worksheet as we are reading these texts.  Both of the books help show how neighborhoods are distinct and how they influence the people who live in the neighborhood.  At the end of the unit I want students to present how their neighborhood influences them in a format of their choosing.  It can be through poetry (like the books we read) or through a multimedia presentation.